He's Alive
by TheLateNightStoryteller
Summary: Fitz doesn't know who or where he is, or why he's there. He doesn't know if he's crazy or broken but he knows he's alive. He is absolutely sure he's alive. FitzSimmons throughout.


This story takes place after the season finale and is honestly the strangest thing I have ever written but I had an idea and I went with it so here it is.

Agents of SHIELD belongs to its way awesome creators and ABC and Marvel.

/-/-/

* * *

"What is your name?"

He was attached to a machine, it looked familiar but he didn't know why. A man, who'd introduced himself as agent Keonig, had hooked him up to it, placing the electrodes over his head, along with a small army of other wires he didn't know the names of, even though he should have. Agent Koenig was now asking him a series of questions, questions that should have been easy, but weren't easy at all.

"I don't know," he answered apologetically, embarrassed.

"Oh great, we have a broken one," agent Hand grumbled and agent Koenig shot her a look.

"I think it's best if _I'm _the only one talking," he said, frowning disapprovingly.

"I outrank you Eric," she objected hotly. "You can't tell me what to do."

"We don't have ranks anymore Vicky," he argued, exasperated, waving his hand dismissively.

"Don't call me that," she snapped, scowling, but agent Koenig ignored her.

"That's OK," he told him. "We'll just call you... um... Kid, for now."

"I don't like that name," he protested, crossing his arms and staring back at agent Hand defiantly. Who was this agent Hand to call him broken? He wasn't broken. "How about Steel Fist," he suggested hopefully.

"No," the other two agents replied in unison and he frowned at them. What did they have against Steel Fist? Was there something wrong with steel? Did they have a problem with fists? He huffed irritably.

"How about Grumpy," agent Hand suggested snarkily.

He glared at her. "I'm not the grumpy one here," he shot back.

She snorted at him but didn't answer in her own defence. She must have known he was right.

_'Fitz.'_

There was that voice again, that sad, watery voice, calling to him inside his head. It was a woman's voice, familiar even if he couldn't remember why. No, she was more than familiar, she was a part of him. She was a part of him and she knew who he was better than he did at the moment.

"It's Fitz," he told them confidently. "My name is Fitz."

/-/-/

Fitz sat on the TV room sofa, Buddy's big brown head on his lap as he munched on pretzels. The dog stared up at him with wide, round, irresistibly cute doggie eyes, wanting a bite.

"No Buddy," he scolded, amused. "You can't eat this, you eat dog food."

"It's not like it's going to kill him," agent Hand joked grimly from the arm chair, looking up from her book.

"We're not dead," Fitz insisted again, irritation prickling his spine.

"I'm dead," she shrugged.

"Well I'm not," he asserted.

"Whatever you say," she replied condescendingly, not at all believing him, as she resumed reading.

"I'm not dead," he muttered, running his fingers through Buddy's fur, attempting to calm himself. He hated it when she said that.

"I believe you," agent Keonig told him from the other end of the sofa and Fitz beamed at him. At least someone was on his side.

"Don't encourage him Eric," agent Hand scolded, her eyes on her page as if this conversation were beneath her.

"What? He could be alive, how would we know?" he defended, returning Fitz's smile and winking before turning back to her. "Do _you_ hear voices?"

"_I'm _not broken," she countered coldly.

Fitz really wished she'd stop calling him that. Just because there were voices in his head and he didn't know his first name or why he was there did not mean he was broken.

_'Fitz... please...'_

It was her again and this time her voice came to him as a whimper, an awful, painful sound that made his chest ache. She wanted something from him and he wanted to give it to her. He'd do anything to ease her misery, do anything for her, but he didn't know what it was she wanted. Or who she was.

"You OK?" agent Koenig asked, clearly concerned, and Buddy licked his hand, whining anxiously.

Fitz touched his own cheek and felt something warm and wet. Tears, he remembered.

He sniffed, rubbing them off. "I don't know."

"What else is new?" Agent Hand commented sarcastically, still staring at her book.

For all her bitterness, Fitz thought she looked sad too.

"Does anyone ever call to you?" he inquired kindly, turning sympathetic and she finally gazed up at him, eyes bright before she blinked impatiently.

"No," she said flatly. "Maybe she does, but I can't hear her."

"But you know who she is?" he questioned, baffled. How was it that he had the voices, when he couldn't even put a face to them, while agent Hand and agent Koenig had nothing. They knew who they were, who was missing them. Why didn't anyone call to them?

"Yes," she replied quietly, getting up, expression stoney. "Excuse me."

She left, her footsteps clacking down the hallway to another room of the secret base called Providence. It wasn't the real Providence, agent Koenig said that was gone, that it was gone and, anyway, it had been part of another world. A world that wasn't theirs anymore.

_'I'll fix this. I p-promise... I'm so sorry Fitz.' _

Why was she sorry? This wasn't her fault, of that he was certain. He didn't know why he was there but he knew it had something to do with why the others were there and nothing to do with her.

Except it had everything to do with her, he suddenly remembered. It wasn't her fault but, whoever she was, he realized he was there _for _her.

There was a hand, stroking his forehead, migrating up through his hair and he closed his eyes, comforted by it, even though it was the first time he felt something that wasn't there and maybe it meant he actually was broken or crazy. Soft lips brushed against his forehead and he sighed contently before the sensations left him and she was gone again.

No, that wasn't right. He was the one who was gone.

He was crying now, really crying and he buried his face in Buddy's fur, trying to hide it.

Agent Koenig placed a hand on his shoulder.

"It's OK Fitz," he soothed. "Well... it's not... but..." he laughed awkwardly. "At least we have an X-Box. Wanna play? I have dream-fi."

"What?" he sniffed, lifting his face from Buddy who licked his hand again and wagged his tail encouragingly. Fitz kissed the sweet dog's head and gratefully stroked his short, chocolate fur before turning his attention to agent Koenig.

"We can play games," agent Koenig explained.

"Dream-fi?" Fitz raised his eyebrows skeptically.

"I dunno," he chuckled. "It's what it says on the router, I just know it lets me play video games with my brothers again, sometimes. When they're sleeping I think."

He handed him a controller and Fitz smiled through his tears, wiping them away and feeding Buddy a pretzel as agent Koenig turned on the TV. What harm could the snack do? Agent Hand was right, Buddy was already dead.

/-/-/

_'I don't...'_

She paused for a long time and Fitz waited patiently, laying on his bed in Providence, feeling her cool hand on his forehead, running over his hair. It was happening more now, the feeling on top of the hearing. Maybe it meant he was crazy and it hurt a little, his head ached and his arm was stiff, but he didn't care. He wanted this world a million times more than Providence, however painful it was.

_'I don't know if you can hear me... or if you'll understand... but you need to wake up. I don't want to do this without you. I'm doing everything I know how to but...' _

Another pause. She was crying, defeated and alone and it hurt him to hear her painful sobs, hear how distressed she was. He knew what she wanted now, she wanted him to come back. She wanted him to wake up but he didn't know how, didn't know how because he didn't feel like he was asleep.

_'Please, please wake up... your mum won't stop crying, she needs you... the world needs you in it, needs you to fix things, to make more wonderful things with those beautiful hands._

Her fingers tangled into his and he tried to move them, to tell her he was there and that he could hear her, but he couldn't.

_Fitz please... I need you... I love you... I mean of course I love you but ..._

She let out a shaky breath.

_I'm in love with you Fitz. That's what I mean, so you better get back here from wherever the hell you are. I don't care how many monkeys or mini-cupcakes there are, you get back here.' _

His heart leapt at her words and he struggled towards her, concentrated on her voice and the feel of her hand on his head and her fingers intertwined with his own, but nothing happened.

'I love you too,' he thought as loudly as he could. 'Whoever you are.'

Now he really felt crazy, or broken, or both, because how could he love someone so much and not know who they were? What they looked like? All he knew was her voice and her touch.

If he could just move his hand... squeeze hers even lightly...

His finger twitched, he was sure of it.

Good... good, now try again-

"WHOOOO!"

He bolted upright and fell back out of the world where she was.

"Buddy!" he hissed, rising to open the door so the dog could enter his room. "Damn it, can't you ever sleep in Koenig's room?"

Buddy trotted in happily, tail wagging, and hopped onto his bed. Fitz sighed and sat down beside him, allowing him to rest his head on his lap.

"I was so close that time Buddy," he whispered, scratching his ears. "I need to go home."

/-/-/

"But she loves me," he argued, unsure why Hand still didn't get it. They'd been arguing for twenty minutes while Koenig awkwardly scrubbed the dishes a few feet away, pretending not to notice the tension, whistling to himself in false cheerfulness.

She didn't understand that the woman needed him, that he had to try and wake himself up because he'd been waiting years to hear her say those words, that she was in love with him, and he couldn't just die now that she had.

"So?" Hand scoffed. "Everyone here has someone who loves them. Eric has his brothers, John has his wife and his daughter, Marcus has his mom and dad-"

"I have a mum too," he told her. "She needs me to come back, I'm her only child."

"So is Marcus," she snapped. "But you can't go back. You're dead, don't you get that?"

"I'm not dead," he insisted stubbornly. "I can hear her. She says she's in love with me. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to hear that?"

"Do _you_?" she snorted, unimpressed. "Do you even know the name of this woman you're in love with?"

Fitz ignored that, he was growing used to Hand's jeering comments and he knew who the woman was, he just couldn't remember. "She talks to me." he pressed. "She wouldn't do that if I were dead, not for this long. She's so sad, I'm sad, my mum is sad... everyone is miserable and I need to go home and fix it."

"None of us are going home!" agent Hand hissed, eyes flaring. "You don't think I had a life too? You don't think there were people who were sad when _I _was murdered, when we were all murdered?"

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, he wasn't exactly on friendly terms with Hand, but he hadn't wanted to flaunt his 'alive' status in her face. "I know... you don't deserve this," he turned to Koenig. "Neither do you." His friend smiled sadly at him. "None of us do and it isn't fair... I know it isn't fair that I'm alive and you're not but-"

"YOU ARE NOT ALIVE!" she yelled. "Stop holding onto that... onto her. That's the worst thing you can do right now. It isn't going to save you, it's too late for that, you're only going to get hurt."

"Hand-" he reached out to her but she shoved herself away from the table and stormed out of the room.

/-/-/

She was holding him, holding him and crying. He could feel her arms around him, hear her steady heartbeat, smell her sweet, wonderful scent.

_I'm s-sorry...I- I'm s-so s-sorry... I t-tried Fitz... I rea- really t-tried..._

She kissed his face and he felt more with her than in the TV room. She was all around him, a part of him as he was a part of her, one person with two hearts. Or one heart in two people, he wasn't sure which.

_'And I haven't s-stopped trying... I haven't given up b-but... b-but... I'm not going to lie to you...'_

She was silent for a long time, her face buried in his hair, her body shaking with soundless sobs.

_'I don't know what to do.'_

'Me neither,' he thought despairingly, taking comfort in the small flock of kisses landing on the top of his head. 'I'm not giving up either though,' he vowed.

A shudder passed through him and he was gone again. He opened his Providence eyes to see that Hand was back in the living room, reading her book.

"Her name is Jemma," he told her quietly, defiantly.

Hand sighed and placed her book on the table, frowning at him.

"You don't have to believe me," he declared. "I'm going back, I'm going home. I don't belong here."

"None of us belong here," she muttered. Then she stared at him, almost kindly and added, "And none of us can leave... except... maybe you."

Fitz raised his eyebrows, not quite believing what he'd heard. She'd said it so softly, maybe he'd misheard her and she'd said something else.

"It's freaky when you do that you know," she told him harshly, but he could see she wasn't angry. She was just sad and hurt like he was. "You get this stupid look on your face and your fingers start twitching. It's weird."

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Don't apologize," she shook her head. "You're alive and we're not. It's not your fault but," she narrowed her eyes, "but you damn better stay that way," she warned. "You have a chance, a chance the rest of us can only dream about, and if you throw that away I'll kick your ass."

He wasn't sure if she was serious but he smiled at her because, coming from Hand, that was almost an 'I love you.'

"Do you want a pretzel?" he offered, pushing the bowl towards her.

"Why not?" she accepted, taking one and biting half of it. "It's not like it's going to kill me."

She smirked at him and they laughed together at her dark humour.

/-/-/

The next day Koenig found Buddy, laying on Fitz's bed whining, his head resting on his paws.

"What is it boy?" he asked but as the words left him he noticed a note, a small, torn piece of paper with black hand-writing.

_I am going home._

He chuckled to himself as he sat down beside the dog, patting his head.

"It's OK Buddy," he told him smiling. "Fitz is going to be OK."

/-/-/

* * *

So... this is the weirdest thing I have ever written. It is inspired by an episode of Grey's Anatomy (there are so many, I can't find it, but one after the ferry boat accident when Meredith almost drowns) and also by the third season episode of Fringe _Subject 13. _

The Fringe reference is actually from that episode. It is the note that says I am going home. Peter leaves the same note for his mom when he is convinced he comes from the land at the bottom of the lake (instead of the other universe where he really comes from, poor kid thinks he's a mermaid.)

Also I know that agent Koenig is a clone or something and that's why there are a bunch of them but I do remember him saying something about playing video games with his brother. And even if they are clones they can also still be brothers.

The whole WHOOO! at the door is from my girlfriend's Schnauzer. The WHOO! is so cute.. but... not when you are trying to sleep. Or wake up apparently haha.

Also I don't think they are really going to have Simmons admit/realize she is in love with him so soon, and this actually clashes with many other fics I wrote, but it's not entirely impossible and besides it is in his head.

Late Edit: Everyone here is someone who was killed by Ward or Hydra. John and Marcus are the names I gave to the men he killed in the elevator at the Fridge. Alternatively, one of them could be Triplett's dead partner.


End file.
